According to Freud, individuals dream as a means of expressing unconscious interests and desires. He divided dreams into two different categories, the manifest content, and the latent content. Latent content is simply what the dream is about. Manifest content is the hidden message, or not realized meaning behind the dream. Freud argues there is more to dreams than what is simply presented. There are unconscious desires or wants, and the dream is there to express those unconscious wishes.
A differing view about why we dream is presented by cognitive theorist. They believe that dreaming is a means the brain uses to sort through information taken in that day. It serves to organize information, to link it, and tie it into memories. As a result, they believe it is a way to organize and sort information that is presented to mind.
This ties into developmental processes, because as the brain develops it encounters many stimuli that are internalized. The brain needs a means in order to organize and link important information. If it did not, thoughts and stimuli would be caotic, and the brain would not be able to maintain a highly organized structure. The complex operations it performs would be lost as well. Therefore, there is some evidence supporting the theory that dreams are a way in which the brain organizes information, and ties into usefull pathways.
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I found one study that talked about waking subjects up before they entered the REM Process and it effected them in many ways. Even though they slept the same amount as they normally did, they were found to be more irritable and it showed a general empairment in thier daily function. That also shows there are many different importances in dreaming.
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